Bluegrass Today Profiles

On This Day  … On May 14, 2005, Jimmy Martin passed away. Ten years ago today, James Henry Martin passed away in Nashville, Tennessee, having been diagnosed with bladder cancer over a year earlier. He was aged 77. The Toronto Star called him "one of

On This Day…… On May 8, 1995, Carroll Best was shot dead by his brother Sam. He was 64 years of age. Hugh Carroll Best Jr, from the Crabtree community of Haywood County, North Carolina, was a master of the melodic or

Steve Lewis, from Todd, NC (a tiny community just north of Boone) was gracious enough to talk with me about his experience playing and winning some of the toughest banjo and guitar contests in the country. In the interest of full

Maybe the Spinney Brothers should try to negotiate a contract that pays them by the mile. Sure, every bluegrass band racks up the miles, but when home is in Nova Scotia, just about every trip for Rick and Allan Spinney is

You know what drives me nuts? It’s pretty simple. It’s for me to be on stage and play a fiddle note that is not good quality. Mind you, it can be one note in thousands — or it can be

With a rich background in Appalachia, and years of picking their own brand of vivid bluegrass blended jam music, it is undeniable that The Larry Keel Experience is one of the most lively acts on the festival scene today. Attendees

On this Day … On Saturday, April 11, 1953, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys (Curly Seckler, Benny Martin, bass player unknown, but may have been Red Murphy) performed at the Mosque Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, along with

Having A Coffee With... is a fun series in which we ask bluegrass music personalities, some famous, some not so famous, about some of their interests, as well as about the music that they love.   Allan Spinney is the older of

“John Hartford talked about the process of driving a river boat is not to look right in front of you, but to look a mile down the river.” Busy musical artists oft times become tangled in their own lack of long-range

On this day... On March 30, 1935, Paul Williams was born in Wytheville, Virginia. He was raised in eastern Tennessee. “Williams” was actually the stage name for Paul McCoy Humphrey. It was the name that he adopted when he joined the Lonesome